Monday, May 31, 2010

If there's one thing that rubs the fact in that you have to work on a bank Holiday more then anything it's the traffic.

Or rather the complete lack of traffic when you set out first thing in the morning. No stopping at junctions, no getting stuck behind lorries or getting stuck in long queues. Heck even if the traffic lights seem determined to always be on green for you as a way of rubbing in that fact that hey you're having to work most other people don't!

Still I shouldn't complain too much over the fact I had to work today as firstly I only have to do a half day and secondly it's the only Bank Holiday I have to work this year.

Also I'm back on what I like to call the early mid shifts this week, 9.15 start and then I have a week of earlys which is good. But then I get a week of extended shifts as I'll be working a Saturday but I can't really complain as it's been a llooonnnggg time since I've had to work a Saturday shift.

Anyway it's a new month starting tomorrow. Here's hoping it's a good one.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Hi Folks. Sorry about the lack of bloggage for the past few days. I'm afraid that I wasn't able to blog as I've been ill. In fact I wasn't able to do much of anything.

Regular readers will remember that I said I had come down with something on Saturday. However as it turned out I hadn't come down with anything at that point, I was still in fact " coming down" with something which turned out to be a not very nice bug which among it's symptoms caused me to loose my voice!

Which isn't exactly a useful thing to happen when your job involved talking to customers all day! So I've had the past couple of days off work sick which weren't nice as I was throughly bored. I could never be one of those people who live off benefits as I'd go bonkers without anything to do!

I was back at work today and my main focus was to simply get through the day as I'm still not feeling 100% and still have a cold. All I can say is thank goodness for lemsips :-)

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Well it was apparently the hottest day of the year today ( I was really glad for the AC in Grumpys car) and what goes and happens?

Well I wake up to find I've sucumbed to the "bug" which has been making it's way around our team at work and I now have a rotten cough, cold and sore throat. So that combined with the high temperatures means I've been feeling pretty grotty all day.

I also really didn't like the episode of Doctor Who this evening. I thought it had just too many plot holes and the attempts to build the tension were totally ruined by the absurdness of the Doctor and Co being able to search several houses for cameras and sensors then rig a full sulivance network over the entire village in under eight minutes! The Doctor is good but I don't think he's that good.

Anyway it was the first part of a two parter so heres hoping the second part will redeem it.

When people first start their role at work it's standard practise for them to have more experienced staff members to "mentor" them by sitting with them side by side and giving them advice, tips, and all the valuable tricks of the trade that they have learnt from a lot of hard taught lessons. Now it's usually the same staff members who do are picked for this vital role who everyone acknowledge at being good at their job.

So I was not surprised when our team manager said that BeeBee and MC (the guy I sit next too) were going to and sit with the latest group of trainees. What totally blindsided me were the next words out of his mouth which caused my head to snap round in a " he can't have said what he just said can he?" moment. The Words " And Saxon as well".

My first thought was to turn right round in my chair to see where the other saxon was, he meant me, he actually meant me. I even asked MC " Is he joking?" to which MC just gave me a confused look and asked why I thought he would be joking. So as you can imagine I was really feeling the pressure at this point as I would be helping train someone and I was also feeling a little bit nervous but a few moment late I started to feel very pressured when MC told me that he couldn't remember ever seeing anyone who just finished probabation being tapped to do training!

So yes for the past couple of days I have been doing some training with one of the new members of staff. I suppose you could say I now have a protege. Wow I feel so grown up :-)

It's been a interesting experience and a lot of fun. I just hope I've been doing the right things and impressed the bosses!

Well it was another warm day today. In fact so warm I left my jumper and coat in the car this morning as I certainly didn't need them. In fact it's supposed to the the hottest day of the year this weekend. Which I'll probably spend doing the same thing I usually do during the hot weather.

Moaning about the hot weather.

Still it's the weekend which means two whole days to myself and I'll be back on lates next week so several days of lie ins.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Yes the hot weather that has long been promised but never arrived actually arrived today. Summer might well be on the way after weeks of awful and cold weather. And the response to this nice weather? Why a typical english one of course.

Moaning, lots and lots of moaning.

To be fair it did catch a lot of people out as it was very warm today and quite sticky as well which made for not nice conditions at all. Especially when it took our air con a fair while to get up to maximum effectiveness after a emergency resetting!

Still forewarned is forearmed as they say. At least it won't be as much of a surprise now we head into summer.

We'll probably still all moan about the weather though.

If you haven't been to visit Nemesis blog in a while now might be a good time to.... for no reason whatsoever :-)

Wel it's one more day to the weekend which I am really looking forward to. It's been a rough week this week but it's getting better though which is always a plus.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

I was having a hard morning at work this morning until my "troubles" were thrown into perspective. I took a call from a Relay service who relay phone calls for deaf people and it made me realise that I don't have anything remotely seriously wrong in my life at all right now and how much I take for granted. I have four limbs, I can walk, I can talk, I can see and I can hear which is more then some people have. It's easy to miss counting some of the blessings you have in life.

Well in the news today apparently the countries more in debt then first thought. One report said national debt was almost at 1 trillion pounds. Apparently the previous government had been "cooking" the books to make it look like they were doing better then they were. So I guess you could say that the big news item of the day was " Government scews facts to make themselves appear better shock! news at 11"

The TV series lost finishes this week. I'm not bothered as to be honest I lost track of it after the 2nd series when it was poached by sky.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Well despite the prophesied doom and gloom work was pretty much unaffected by all the recent airspace closures due to the ash cloud. Or should I say clouds both real and imagenary. Yes it seems that most of the aiports in the south were closed due to a theory on a model which proved to be totally inaccurate.

I thinks even the term Oops doesn't quite cover that one.

There will apparently be a series of Doctor Who live stage shows featuring the Daleks and the Cybermen as the BBC tries to prove that it's not trying to get every last pound from merchandise to do with the show...... wait a second.

You also know that it's a slow news day when one of the tops stories is that someone found two bananas in one skin. I mean come on with everything thats going on in the world right now thats the best they could come up with?

Or maybe it was just a backup story. Do they even have lists like that? Something to fall back on if there's not enough a-grade material?

Sunday, May 16, 2010

I was more then a little annoyed to see on the news tonight that they are shutting UK airspace again due to that damn volcano. If it's only for one day then thing should be okay, if it goes on for any longer then that, that will probably be when the fun begins.

Again.

Oh well I suppose I shouldn't worry about things I can't change, I just need to make sure that I start the week with a postive attitude and keep it all way through. I need to keep my focus on what I can change.

Church was interesting today because as it was the closest Sunday to the aniversary of the restoration of the priesthood in our church they decided to do their annual trip out to the Outwoods. Now I say annual but for the last two years I think they haven't been able to do it due to the weather. However today was a different matter entirely as there was bright sunshine and clear blue skies. We got to the outwoods however to discover that instead of going into the woods we were going up a hill on the opposite side of the road. A very steep hill. A very steep hill with a lot of rocks. A very steep hill with a lot of rocks that were very smooth with people trying to climb over them in Sunday shoes which don't have a lot of grip. Suffice to say it was a long careful trip up and a long careful trip down. Although it was funny while we were up there when two people in boots and all of the usual outdoor walking gear appeared as they didn't have looked shocked to find a group of men in suit and ties on top of hill in the middle of the countryside!

Still the view was fantastic and the meeting was brilliant as well you could really feel the spirit there as people bore their testimonys to the group.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

I found myself in the waterstones bookstore this morning looking somewhat unsurprisingly for a book. I've now read near enough all the best books on the tudors and probably know more then I ever need to know about that period of history and as there were no new military style history books that I want to rad right now so I was looking for a new focus history wise to read about.

After much consideration I've decided to start reading up about the English civil war as my knowledge about that period of time is really rather limited ( somewhat surprisingly for me). Plus the amount of books there are avalable on the subject should keep even me in reading material for a few weeks maybe even a month at least :-)

Speaking of things historical I went with several of the YSA to see the new Robin Hood film tonight and it was surprisingly good. The comments about Russels crowe's Accent in the film are justified at the start as it does seem to vere from Scottish to Irish to english but settles down as the film progresses.

Going out to the cinema means I haven't seen the latest episode of Doctor Who yet but thanks to the magic of Iplayer I soon will.

Friday, May 14, 2010

It was another dress down day today at work and this was another one for charity. Not that I mind as it is in a good causes and it's only a £1 which gets me out of the hassle of having to iron a shirt for that day.

Speaking of which I found out today that my official uniform is due to arrive next week as I am a full member of staff now. Now only will I be getting shirts and trousers, I also get a tie and a jacket as well. Pretty cool if I do say so myself.

Well it seems that the grim reaper is busy stalking the US TV networks right now. Although chuck has been renewed for another season Yaah! Flash Forward and Heroes have been cancelled as well as "scrubs" which to be perfectly frank should have never come back for that last series without JD anyway. Plus Law and Order is cancelled as well although yet another Law and order spin off is on the way, Law and Order: Los Angles...... I wonder where that one will be set :-)

With Lost ending as well we could really do with some new SCI-fi tv shows but it looks like they'll once again be in short supply this season. Boo!!!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Today was a strange day at work today. Usually Thursdays are pretty good but today it seemed to be the polar opposite which was weird and quite frankly not that nice. It was just one of those days where I really wished for a restart by mid day and I was feeling totally worn out by the end of the day.

Now the worn out part I suppose could be down to the bad day or just the week of earlies ( who knows?) Anyway one bad day does not a bad week make so I'm feeling positive that tomorrow will be better and be the kind of good end of the week I could really do with.

Well we have a new government ( finally) and day things have changed...... well not a lot really. They seem to have a lot of ideas but nearly all of them are just theory right now so I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. I do have a feeling though that this coalition government will go one of two ways. It will either work very well or will hopelessly collapse.

Grumpy is just about ready to start chucking things at the TV if he see's another ad with Ant and Dec in. ITV ( thats a tv channel) has just launched a new HD service and they have got Ant and Dec to advertise this fact. It's not the advert itself which is the problem it's more the fact that they see fit to show it every advert break again and again and again.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

One of the downsides when I was made redundent from my last job was that the prices I had to pay for my hobby basically went up 50% which is a heck of a lot as I'm sure you'll agree. It was hard but it was another fact of life that I had to accept after leaving the company.

So I was dismayed to read today that their about to have another massive price increase for their sets and books. The price increase seems to be anywhere from 10 through to 20% with the average price increase of 13%. So that's 13% increase on top of the 50% increase I've had to take.

Now i'm sure if I was still there there would have been lengthy briefings to describe the thinking behind the new prices and I would have looked at the theory and agreed and wondered why people were complaining when it made sense

Well this is the first price rise I've seen from the "civilian" point of view in seven years and it's not a good thing at all. In fact I can see full well why people complaining (especially as many of the sets in question went up last year!)

I suppose it's a good lesson in humility.

I'm going to have to reduce what I do hobbywise from now on and even consider if I can keep doing it if the prices go up again next year as I'm near my limit now.

To put their prices in perspective some of the "tank" models after the price rise will now cost the same as our weekly food shop!

Well it's either that or find a new game to play. As Grumpy put it, it's not like I have to stay with it now.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

As regular readers will know I've been going to the national YSA conference now for several years and I throughly enjoy the weekend each time. It's a good way to meet new friends and new people.

So as you can imagine I was somewhat dismayed to recieve this email on Sunday night.

This will come a blow to many but unfortunately the 2010 Manchester Convention has had to be CANCELLED. There are several reasons why this hard decision has been made including financial, organisational and venue. More information will be available soon.All is not lost however as there are several equallty excellent conferences taking place over the coming months. Dance are still on and we would also encourage you to meet as friends whenever you can to strengthen yourselves.Once Again please forgive us , it was a hard choice to make but we will try harder next year.May God be with you.After the initial tempatation to start throwing stuff passed I suddenly realised that something didn't add up. One it was from a commitee member who wasn't on the commitee anymore. Two why was it sent out on a sunday. Three why was it send via facebook. Four why did is say nothing on the conference website. Five why had it not been sent to the conference facebook group and six why would you sent out a email to announce a cancellation and not give all the information ine one go.

The answer was not long in coming. The email unsurprisingly was a fake. The person who was supposed to have sent the email actually sent out a geniune email explaining the situation and suffice to say he was not a happy bunny.

So the conference is still on, I will get my weekend away in August hopefully once again meeting new people and making some new friends and if a church member was involved in mounting this attack ( or it could have been a prank I suppose) there better keep an eye out as there are some not very happy area authorties who would like a word with him.

Well it's been announced that a new Judge Dredd film is in development. Hurrahh!! It's got a modest budget which means the story should win out over effects ,Double Hurrah!! And it's likely that Judge Dredd will not be taking his helmet off triple Hurrah!!

Seriously if you ever want to have fun with a die hard judge dredd fan ask them what they think of Judge Dredd removing his helmet in the film with good ole sly stallone. For anyone who does know, isn't a fan or just doesn't care Judge Dredd has never removed his helmet in the comics so you can see his face. His helmet has been removed a few times but thanks to "camera angles" or items in the way you never see what he looks like.

This simple fact is one of the main things which had Judge dredd fans chewing their seats in anger when the film was released. Well that and a whole other list of things too long to go into. Still there were flashes of classic Judge Dredd, like at the start of the film where he walks into the middle of a riot and announces the inhaibtants of two whole blocks are under arrest and the point where he tells someone they should have gone out of the window rather then damage a droid. When the character tells him that it would have been suicide he calmly responds that yes it would have been but at least it would have been legal.

So the new film should be quite good because they can't do much worse. My hope is for the Dark Judges personally

I saw this picture today and yes I know to many people it may not look like much but it is a amazing picture. It is the first picture of the Earth and Moon taken from Mars orbit. It makes you realise just how precious our planet really is.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Well it's back to work tomorrow bright and early. And by early I mean earrlllyyyy!!! As I will be on the early shift. Not that I'm complaining mind you as there are worse shifts to be on and it will be a good way to ease back into work whilst I try and find my "flow" again.

I'm sure it will be just like last time when I'm going to be extremely "punchy" at the keyboard for at least the first couple of hours.

There's still no progress with regards to who will be running the country. Everythings in a weird state of limbo right now as MP's run back and forth trying to sort out deals as to who will support who.

Saturday, May 08, 2010

As you may have guessed from the title of todays post it's quite cold right now. Actually surprisingly cold for May, so cold we've even had to put the central heating on. Which is something you should really be doing in May. Grumpys favourite quote about all this is to keep blaming the volcano. Well it is just as likely an explanation as anything else.

There's still no winner with regards to the election. The parties are still making "deals" with each other. I guess we're going to have to wait and see how things turn out.

It's going to be a busy week next week for me as there is a CES broadcast tomorrow, FHE on Monday, a YSA advisory council meeting on Tuesday, a YSA presidency meeting on Wednesday followed by Institute.

Oh yeah and I have to go back to work too :-)

The latest episode of Doctor Who this evening was very good and it also had a lot of good one liners as well as some great visual gags as well. Matt Smith seems to have finally come into his own as the Doctor.

As well as being cold it's also been raining a lot today which made things fun while trying to do the shopping. I also somewhat surprisingly had difficulty finding a shop that could replace the battery on my watch. Fortunatly I finally managed to find somewhere even if the guy in there was extremely condscending. I found it very hard not to be sarcastic when he told me that did I know the inside of the watch was dirty. I was tempted to say something along the lines of yes I did know as like most people I take the back of my watch on a regular basis. But I didn't. Mainly because he hadn't told me the price at that point for replacing it :-)

Friday, May 07, 2010

There has been one phrase and one phrase only that has been dominating all news media today and that is " a Hung parliment" yes after all of the hype the tories failed to get the number of seats they needed to get into power. So now we're going to have several days of all sorts of political shenigans as the parties try to do deals to form some sort of government.

So this does mean it is entirely possible that the parties who came second and third could form the next government while the party who gained the most seats ( and votes) doesn't.

It has been amazing watching how some of the MP's from Labour have been trying to twist the result to make it look best for them. Self belief ( and quite possibly delusions) are commodities they are not short of.

Well it was the last day of my holiday today so I decided to go into Nottingham to do some shopping. It was very weird going along the route I used to take every day but no longer have to. I did some quick math ( and probably wrong but c'est la vie:-) and estimated that during the time I worked in Nottingham I would have made the journey along that road over 4000 times!

Not that you need to know that. Or I needed to know that for that matter it was just one of those random thoughts that popped into my head.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

I walked round with Grumpy today to the polling station so we could both do our civic duty and cast out vote to who we want to be our new lords and masters, erhhh I mean who we want the government to be for the next 0-5 years depending on when the next election is called. I mentioned to Grumpy afterwards that after the weeks of constant talk, campaigning and twists and turns of the election it all seemed a bit anti climatic really for it to come down to making a mark on a piece of paper. We didn't even get pens in our polling station, we had pencils.

You would have thought for somethink so vitally important to the nation we would at least get cookies after making our vote.

So it's now a waiting game, literally as the results will be coming in through the night. Not that I have any intention what so ever in waiting up for them. It's not like it will make any difference as to whether I'm watching or in bed so I'd much rather get some sleep thank you very much.

Elder Engineseer has reported in as it were. He's left the MTC and is now is his first area. He is very keen to recieve some letters so if anyone wants to write to him send me a email via facebook and I'll send you his address.

In a effort to get away from the election hype I decided to go to the cinema around Lunchtime to see Iron Man 2. I even splashed out for the VIP seating. The film was good, although the effects often overwhelmed the story, I would say that the original is still the better of the two. I do like how their starting to wheve the marvel based films together and the injoke with the shield was really funny. However I am sure that probably 90% of the people who go to see the film just won't get the relevance of the bit after the credits and what that has to do with Iron Man, or even that it's a clue to the next marvel based film to be released.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Well the thinking of good thoughts paid off as I'm pleased to say that my Car came through it's service and MOT with no problems whatsoever. Well asides from one small heart attack moment when after taking the call from the Garage Grumpy thought it would be funny to tell me that they had found something wrong with the brakes that would cost over £200 to fix!

As you can imagine I really really did not appreciate his sense of humour at that point.

The activity after Institute was interesting. It was run by Physics and involved a fair chunk of the lads ( no girls played), however as to what they were playing I have no idea. I watched the game trying to figure out the rules and ended up totally confused as to how the game worked. It looked more like calvinball then anything else!

Well tomorrow is polling day which means it will be time for us to go and do our civic duty and vote. I still find it very odd that some people don't go and vote. I mean it's really important and it takes at most ten minutes out of your day.

There were more people complaining about Doctor Who today. Their complaining about the alleged attempts to "sex up" the show, using that "scene" from the last episode and the forthcoming episode featuring Female vampires complaing their wearing low cut outfits. Now the outfits they'll be wearing are "period dress" and I'm no fashion expert but they don't look cut any different to "normal". You do have to wonder if some people just like to moan! I mean their could be other things for them to moan about.

Like this for instance. A "actor" who was running a "celebrity agony uncle" column in a lads mag gave a reply to a readers question about not being able to get over his ex that he should go out and get drunk, seduce some girl then break her heart thus turning the tables or and I quote here" The other option is to cut your ex's face and then no one will want her" . Now yes this was in a lads magazine which is hardly near the top of the list of high quality publications but still all I can say to this is " What the hell????" Why did the magazine print this? Was there editor totally asleep or not just doing his job or do they to (paraphrasing Doctor Cox from scrubs here)" Replace the Captain of the editors brainship as he's drunk at the wheel." You don't joke about things like that.

I'm still trying to find a version of the theme song from the Earth to the moon miniseries to go on my Ipod and I still can't find one anywhere. To make it worse I've also found another piece of music that I really like and I can't find that one anywhere for download either. Arrgghhh!!!!

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

I was a bit surprised to see in the coverage of the recent failed car bombing in New york that not only were they covering the bombing but also going into great detail as to why the bomb failed and what should have been done to make it a successful bomb. Now I could be wrong but I would have thought that when you haven't caught a failed bomber yet the last thing you want to do is tell him where he went wrong? Or is that just me?

Well two more days to the election and for that I am very glad as I just want the whole thing to be over and done with!

I've spent most of the day having a tidy out of a few things, okay admitally not the most exciting way to spend my day but it was still fun. I'm just enjoying the sensation of being able to do as little as possible.

Monday, May 03, 2010

Well the bank holiday arrived today with the usual British bank holiday weather. I.e it rained. A lot. But not constantly though, it was doing it in dribs and drabs in what seemed like an attempt to catch people out. It would stop, get sunny and then suddenly start raining again.

Apparently the ash cloud which closed much of Europes airspace is back as their going to be shuting down a large chunk of scottish and all of Irish airspace this evening ( which should make things interesting at work for a few days) although they have said it's not supposed to be as bad as last time.

There was a interesting article in the paer today about the next episode of Doctor Who where some people are complaining that as it features vampires it's too "scary" for a family show. Although these same people seemed to have no problems with the "full on" scenes at the end of the last episode in a "family" show. I'm being vague there in case anyone hasn't seen it yet as I don't want to spoil it. If you have watched it then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

It was a bit different at church today as mainly I didn't have to do a lot of running around trying to get figures off people. Yes from the heyday of having four callings at once I now have one as I have been released at the Elders quorum secretary. So no more having to take a register or trying to get home teaching figures from each companionship.

However with "good" news comes the bad as we were ocne again reminded that they want the YSA to do a musical item next week in the ward conference. Which would be okay if we actually had more people who could sing! I think some people forget that just because your in the church doesn't mean that you can sing. Plus the other problem we have is Loughborough YSA isn't as big as it used to be. Well at least we have the girls who can sing and physics, all we need now is a cunning plan to lure fraggle and cordelia back for a one day one off visit and it might actually sound okay.

Well this time next week the election will be over and for that I will be incredibily grateful as it's getting so boring now. And nasty as well everyone reckons it will be really close this time round. I guess we'll see what happens.

I've found a new addiction as it were on facebook to replace Farmville. It's called Desktop defender and like all good addictive games it's very simple but a lot of fun.

Well it's the start of my week off tomorrow. I don't know what I'm going to do but I do know it will be fun, it will be relaxing and a good chance to recharge my batteries.

Saturday, May 01, 2010

The weather today has been a bit bizare even by UK standards as it's flipped form raining, to sunny and warm to cloudy, to windy back to sunny again! Now it could just be normal or it could have something to do with it being a bank holiday weekend as everyone knows your not supposed to have nice weather on a back holiday :-)

The second part of Doctor Who was very good although the end scene was shall we say a little full on for a family show and there might be some awkwards questions to parents from children wanting to know exactly what Amy meant when she was talking to the Doctor.

Grumpy pointed out today that this time next week the election would be over (yaah!) and it will be interested to see how things stand. After the "bigot" fiasco of the past week the Prime minister seems to be getting in more and more trouble with two national newspapers withdrawing their support for him. Declaring that this withdrawal was "irrelevant" could be a sign that someone is trying to convince himself he's currently not in serious trouble.

After viewing a couple of episodes I've found myself becoming hooked on Stargate Universe. Although I wasn't initally interested in the series I've found myself really enjoying it as I think it's got back to the main strengths of the stargate franchise as you get the feeling in this series that the characters are in danger and could die which was a bit hard to accept towards the end of Sg-1 and Atlantis as they were flying round in earths own fleet of space battlecruisers and a city sized spacecraft! Midn you Universe isn't as good as Battlestar galactica but it has plenty of potential.